Quotes

Hold to the now, the here, through which all future plunges to the past.

One by one they were all becoming shades. Better pass boldly into that other world, in the full glory of some passion, than fade and wither dismally with age.

I wanted real adventures to happen to myself. But real adventures, I reflected, do not happen to people who remain at home: they must be sought abroad.

The longest way round is the shortest way home.

I truly do not know whether the crawling with which man begins his first movement in life is not a kind of training for practical life.

Although death is the one and most certain fact in every man’s life, everyone writing an autobiography usually avoids beginning with that fact.

From school into the army, from the army into prison, and from prison into marriage.

I hold it to be true that Fortune is the arbiter of one-half of our actions, but that she still leaves us to direct the other half, or perhaps a little less.

Men are so simple, and so subject to present necessities, that he who seeks to deceive will always find someone who will allow himself to be deceived.

From my father I received life, and from my teacher I learned how to live well.

To estimate how happy a man is, one should ask not what pleases him, but what troubles him.

Solitude is the lot of all outstanding minds.